He jerked his hand away as though the book had bitten him.
Elsie reached for what he assumed was the rational spell.
“Don’t,” he whispered, gritting his teeth. Ogden was pushing himself to the limit, distracting five men at once. He might not have the chance to replace a rational spell as well.
Hand shaking, Bacchus grabbed the cover of the book and flipped it open. His heartbeat soared until it rattled in his skin. At least his clammy hands made turning the pages easier. He flipped to the back of the book, where the master spells were penned in surprisingly sloppy handwriting. Did Merton have an uneven hand? He couldn’t recall.
Heaven help him, the fear spell was like dipping his hand into the mouth of a snake. Elsie’s grip on his bicep helped steady him, even as his breaths came too fast. As long as her hand was there, he knew the guards were still distracted. His job was to read.
The fear helped him read faster.
He had to read several lines of each spell to assess what they were. A slew of curses and blessings, communications spells for plants and animals—
“Oh, I absolutely love your dress!” Miss Prescott’s voice rang out from the library. The couple must have been on their way back into the parlor. She was distracting them. “Wherever did you get it? The color looks so well on you.”
Bacchus’s shaking hands tore one of the opus pages. He winced, flipping past astral projection of oneself, and then a very similar spell allowing astral projection of another person.
Which was when he reached the back cover.
He slammed the book shut and reeled back, breathing hard as the fear spell released its grip. Wiping his forehead, he said, “It’s not hers.” There was no spell that controlled another person. Merton had faked her death with another spellmaker’s opus.
The sound of vomiting brought Bacchus back to the present.
“You! Stop!” Two of the five guards rushed to the veranda, where Mr. Ogden was doubled over and retching on the marble floor.
“Oh, you poor man!” Elsie exclaimed, acting a hair on the excessive side. “Here, now.” She handed him her handkerchief. Ogden’s skin was pale, his eyes hollow. “You should know better than to go out when you’re ill. At least it’s on stone, hmm?” She put an arm around Ogden’s shoulders. “My name is Elsie. Let me help you outside.”
Bacchus wiped the perspiration from his face with his own handkerchief and hurried over. Elsie’s hands were trembling. In addition to the vomit, Mr. Ogden’s nose was bleeding profusely. He’d extended himself too far.
Had Bacchus paged through the master spells any slower, he would surely have been caught with his hands on the opus.
He rushed forward, helping to steady Mr. Ogden as well. “Let’s get you home,” he said, then whispered, “It’s not her.”
Mr. Ogden shut his eyes as though overcome by heavy exhaustion. Validation. He had been right. But it also meant Merton was out there, somewhere, pursuing the heinous plans that had brought them all together.
“Oh dear, he’s with me. I’ve got him.” Miss Prescott gently took Elsie’s place. She apologized profusely to the guards, one of whom remained with them as they escorted Mr. Ogden out of the house. Bacchus pressed Elsie’s handkerchief to Mr. Ogden’s nose so he would not bleed on the carpet. It ruined the cloth, of course, but it hardly mattered. Elsie would need an updated handkerchief soon besides. One that read EK instead of EC.
Miss Pratt and Mr. Camden were near the front of the house when Bacchus and the others emerged. Mr. Camden rushed to the stonemason’s side, and Miss Pratt paled nearly as much as Ogden had.
“I’ll get ’im a carriage,” Mr. Camden said, and ran for the lane. Meanwhile, Bacchus and Miss Prescott led Mr. Ogden to the grass and sat him down. He looked ready to vomit a second time.
“Take her away,” Miss Prescott murmured, tilting her head to Elsie. “It’s best we’re not seen together too long, just in case.”
Elsie’s lips parted as though to protest, but she closed them again, pressing them into a thin line. Bacchus took her hand and guided her away. They would hire their own carriage home.
“He’ll be fine,” he assured her. “It will pass.”
Elsie glanced over her shoulder as they neared the lane her brother had darted toward. A small carriage was pulling around, hopefully for Mr. Ogden. It couldn’t pull too close; as the morning wore on, more and more people were arriving for the memorial-turned-estate-sale, and those who owned their vehicles left them parked as close to the house as they could get. At least the clutter made it easy for Bacchus and Elsie to vanish from sight. The guards outside the home were likely watching Mr. Ogden like a hawk.
Elsie somehow managed to take in a deep breath; Bacchus wasn’t sure how women breathed in those contraptions they wore around their waists. Perhaps sometime he’d ask her. “He’ll be fine,” she repeated. Then, “I suppose we won’t be getting those candlesticks.”
Bacchus had forgotten about the card in his pocket. “I suppose not.”
She squeezed his arm, drawing closer to him, which Bacchus didn’t mind in the slightest. “You’re sure it wasn’t . . . ?”
“The pages were thick and easy to turn. I saw every spell. That opus is not Master Merton’s.”
Elsie nodded, looking straight ahead. They’d reached the main road, and Bacchus turned them west to keep the sun from their eyes. They could walk off the morning’s events before finding transportation. Even Bacchus needed a moment, his body still recovering from the rational spell.
“What next?” he asked.
Elsie shrugged. “More newspaper articles? Perhaps once Ogden is recovered, he can search for clues around Rochester . . . but I’m honestly not—”
She stopped—speech, movement, everything—her eyes glued to a couple coming across the street. There was nothing special about them; they were well dressed, but not to the extent an aristocrat would be. The man appeared to be close to Bacchus’s age, with coiffed ginger hair that was beginning to recede from his forehead. The woman looked older, perhaps Miss Prescott’s age. Her hat was so wide it nearly hit the gentleman in the head while they walked.
“Someone you know?” Bacchus inquired.
Elsie nodded. “That is Alfred Miller.”
It took a second for Bacchus to place the name; Elsie had mentioned the man only once.
This was her old beau.
Bacchus altered their course slightly to be sure they’d cross paths with the couple.
Elsie didn’t object, but her hand tightened on his arm. For a moment it seemed the couple wouldn’t notice them, so Bacchus cleared his throat.
Mr. Miller looked up first, noticing Elsie at once. His countenance was first that of surprise, which he quickly tucked away with a too-wide smile. “Oh! My dear, look. You remember Miss—”
And then his gaze shifted to Bacchus, who stood a full head taller than he and nearly twice as broad. Bacchus made a point of keeping his chin up so he could look down his nose at the man. Here was another reason to be grateful for that gaudy aspector’s pin.
Elsie leaned into Bacchus as they paused on the side of the road. “Oh, Alfred. You’re looking well.” She said nothing to his wife. “What are you doing way out here?”
“The estate sale, of course . . .” Mr. Miller’s eyes kept jerking over Bacchus, like he was trying to ignore him and having a hard time. In that moment, Bacchus found great joy in standing out like a cat in a crow’s nest.
“Oh, I didn’t think you would be interested.” Elsie smiled. “Do stay clear of the veranda; I hear a man lost his breakfast there, looking at the prices of everything.”
Mr. Miller flushed slightly. “And what are you doing here, Elsie?” He eyed the pin on Bacchus’s lapel.